“If you look at my career, I would say that I had speed but I didn’t have consistency. So, I would say I was good, but not good enough.”
With that quote from David Coulthard documentary maker Mario Muth takes us on a 30 minute journey of honesty and insight into the career of the likeable Scot who won 13 grands prix.
Muth has a wonderful ability to encourage his subjects to speak freely and with only audio from the interviewee it’s almost as if you’re in the room with them.
Driving when you’re stoned, or blazed even, is not a particularly good idea. Sure you might get a few laughs, but deep down you know it’s pretty stupid. As these three Kiwi kids show.
More often than not track days are fun. If you like them the next step is amateur level club racing. That can be fun too. You get out on track, with like minded souls wanting to push themselves and their cars to the limits.
Sadly, sometimes some club racers confuse ambition for talent. Sometimes they confuse fun for win at all costs. And sometimes that ends up in arsehole moves like you can see in this video.
Thankfully, the affected driver walked away unharmed from this totally unavoidable incident which took place recently at Croft in the UK. Just make sure you watch the video again, and pay special attention to the head movements of the red baron.
This happened on lap three of a schedule which consisted of two 30 minute races. We’re only seeing one side of the story here, of course, but it’s pretty hard to mount a defence for the dickhead in the red MX-5.
Unfortunately the camera car ended up as a total write off. If you feel strongly enough about the plight of our unsuspecting victim, follow this link and lend a hand.
[Thanks to Pete for the tip]
We’d like to introduce you to what we hope will become a YouTube sensation. Looking at the view count three weeks after this video was published it looks like there’s a way to go, but the ingredients are certainly there.
So what are those ingredients. We start with the crusty, rusty Austin Mini 1000 you see above and just out of picture is a slightly less crusty Toyota Celica GT4. Nik Blackhurst and Richard Brunning, from the appropriately named Bad Obsession Motorsport, have decided it might be a good idea to take the running gear from the Toyota and attempt to stuff it into the Mini.
The video you see after the break is the first episode in what we we expect will be a long, painful, but most of all, rewarding journey. From what we’ve seen so far it looks like Nik is the type of guy who doesn’t give up until he gets the result he wants.
This YouTube clip has elements of Wheeler Dealers, Beetle Crisis and An MG is Born, and is every bit as entertaining and educational. So tune in, and enjoy.
[Thanks to Richard for the tip]
It’s back to earth with a thud for Chris Harris who has followed his epic Ferrari film with a test in a couple of mini hot hatchbacks. Not that he seems to mind too much. And after finishing his duties in the road cars, Harris has a nice surprise for Renault fans at the end.
After the break you can see onboard video of Marc Lieb’s full 6:57 lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife set in a Porsche 918 Spyder ‘Weissach Package’.
On a day where our Australian readers are heading to the polls to kick out one dimwit for another, it’s our duty to brighten this otherwise most depressing of days. Here’s a choice you won’t dread making and when your vote has been cast you won’t regret it for the next three years, regardless of what you choose.
In truth, of course, we have Chris Harris to thank.
Firstly, his reputation presented him with an opportunity to drive two of Ferrari’s best ever cars, the insanely epic F40 and the improving with age F50.
Secondly, because when he does drive these two icons you are left in no doubt as to how much fun he is having. I’d like to be jealous, but I know I wouldn’t be able to do the justice to this comparison that he has done. Normally, Harris’ strength as a reviewer is to explain the detail about what he is experiencing. Here, though, it’s just kid in a candy store stuff and it is sensational.
He does take the time to delve into the past a little, and we’re ever thankful for that. So, without further ado, here’s Chris’ intro before you watch 20 of the most entertaining minutes of car video you could ever wish to see:
Here goes. Two of the greatest Ferraris thrashed as intended. This was one of the best days of my life.
Henry Catchpole from Evo takes us into a motoring fantasy land with this video:
This test brings together some of the greatest analogue super cars—the ones that make you work hard as a driver, but are hugely rewarding – where we discover what they are all about, and why we love them. The McLaren F1 goes up against the Ferrari F40 and F50, Porsche Carrera GT, Noble M600, Pagani Zonda F and Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV.
There’s nothing further we can add, except to ask. Can you imagine how special, how wonderful and how life changing it would have been to experience those seven cars back to back.
[via motorcentral]
We love fast Euro estates here at AUSmotive. Absolutely love ’em! As it happens so does Chris Harris and he brings us two of the very best in his latest video. It’s the Audi RS6 Avant up against the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG Shooting Brake. Wagon versus wagon. V8 versus V8. And, tellingly, all-wheel drive versus rear-wheel drive.
And that’s probably all the introduction you need. The rest is perfect Sunday afternoon fodder.
A very well produced and somewhat cheeky commercial for the Renault Clio IV has been banned by UK authorities because it objectifies women.
In the ad, produced by Renault UK and released to YouTube, the scenario sees customers taking a Clio for a test drive. When stopped at an intersection the salesman suggests the customer presses the va va voom button at which point a mini Paris is built around them.
Included in the mock Paris setting are scantily clad dancers. There’s a version with female and male dancers. It’s true in the full version with the burlesque dancers that there’s some slow motions scenes that increase the revs a bit, but all in all it’s all pretty tame.
However, the YouTube clip, which had registered over 3 million views, got at least one viewer hot enough under the collar to complain and in response the British Advertising Standards Authority said, in part:
The ASA noted that Renault felt the female dancers were just one of the iconic Parisian scenes featured in the ad, which was intended to be a light-hearted parody… However, we were concerned that the ad featured a number of shots of the women’s breasts and bottoms, in which their heads were obscured, and which we considered invited viewers to view the women as sexual objects.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 4.1 (Harm and offence).
However, we’re not wowsers here at AUSmotive and you can see the original ad in full after the break.
This story is more than a little disturbing. You think of big multi-national banks getting hacked. You think of your computer picking up a dodgy virus. But how many of us have ever thought about our cars being hacked?
Andy Greenberg from Forbes recently met up with a couple of geeks to show us what it’s like to drive a car that wasn’t really in his command:
As I drove their vehicles for more than an hour, Miller and Valasek showed that they’ve reverse-engineered enough of the software of the Escape and the Toyota Prius (both the 2010 model) to demonstrate a range of nasty surprises: everything from annoyances like uncontrollably blasting the horn to serious hazards like slamming on the Prius’ brakes at high speeds. They sent commands from their laptops that killed power steering, spoofed the GPS and made pathological liars out of speedometers and odometers. Finally they directed me out to a country road, where Valasek showed that he could violently jerk the Prius’ steering at any speed, threatening to send us into a cornfield or a head-on collision.
The only saving grace, at this stage, is the hackers have to be in the car with you, with a cable connected to the car’s main ECU in order to get that level of control. However, in a test done back in 2010 remote access was gained to an unnamed make of car through its cellular connection and Bluetooth function. Scary, hey!
It was also interesting to read that Toyota already tests their cars to ensure they’re not vulnerable to a wireless attack. Maybe they, and all manufacturers, might need to up the ante?
[Source: Forbes | Thanks to Aaron for the tip]
Chris Harris takes the BMW Vegetable Bum Water 435i out for a drive this week. He likes this new 4 Series a lot. But then doesn’t. Watch the video to find out why.
After watching this clip there’s two things for you to remember. First, if you’d like to buy a new BMW 4 Series we’ve got the skinny on local pricing. Second, no drifting!